OCT 3: Canine Companions

George Armstrong Custer and his wife, Libbie, had a lot of dogs. If you believe one report, it was as many as 80.

George A. Custer and one of his many dogs. (Credit: Library of Congress)

According to writer Kate Kelly, publisher of America Comes Alive!: “…the first documented dog that belonged to the Custers was one named Byron, an English Greyhound that he acquired while he and Libbie were stationed in Hempstead, Texas (1865-66).  Soon after this, the general became enamored of the hunting dogs that Texas planters were using, and his friends began giving him a dog or two from their packs.  These were Scottish Staghounds, known today as Scottish Deerhounds. 

“By the time they moved from Hempstead to Austin, the Custers had acquired 23 dogs.  Ginnie, a setter who was a particular favorite of Libbies’, gave birth to a new litter shortly after the move.  Two or three of the puppies were very weak at birth, and Libbie wrote that George himself walked the floor during the night, trying to save the puppies.”

The Custers would transport dogs with them when moving to a new post, or would find homes for them before they left.

Custer’s most-famous dogs were the Scottish Staghounds Blucher and Maida, who, according to one source, “died in a campaign against the Cheyenne.” In his book, “The Last Stand,” author Nathaniel Philbrick claimed Custer and his brother, Tom, were forced to strangle one dog with a lariat in order to conceal their approach on a Cheyenne encampment at the Battle of the Washita (Nov. 27, 1868.) They killed a second dog for the same reason with a stake used to secure horse leads.

One time Custer did not take his dogs along was in mid-June 1876. The 7th Cavalry was ordered to pursue Sioux and Cheyenne warriors west of Fort Lincoln in the Dakota Territory, so Custer directed Private John Burkman, the man responsible for the dog pack’s upkeep, to hold the dogs back. It was the last time Custer and Burkman would see each other alive.